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D H. MAHONEY 8v H. D. HANOVER.

RAILWAY CATTLE GUARD Invaders:

. Jaw/PZ/YMaZan I UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

DANIEL H. MAHONEY, OF OLNEY, ILLINOIS, AND HENRY D. HANOVER, OF

' AURORA, INDIANA.

RAILWAY CATTLE-GUARD.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 495,098, dated April 11, 1893.

Application filed December 27, 1892. Serial No. 456,442. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, DANIEL I-I. MAHONEY, residing at Olney, Illinois, and HENRY D. HANOVER, residing at Aurora, Indiana, citizens of the United States, haveinvented new and useful Improvements in Railway Cattle- Guards, of which the following is a specification.

Our invention relates to railway cattle guards of the class known as surface guards, in contradistinction to those consisting essentially of parallel strips laid across a pit formed in and across the road-bed-these constructions being placed in the road-way at the sides of an ordinary wagon-road-crossing to prevent cattle from straying upon the trackway of the railroad. The older construction of the pit and cross bars being on many accounts objectionable, attempts have been made to substitute other constructions upon the surface of the road-bed. A forest of vertically pointed spikes or devices of a somewhat similar nature have been substituted but are objectionable on account of the injury to persons and to cattle.

Our invention is designed to provide an efficientguard which shall prevent the straying of cattle without injury and at the same time permit the track-walkers and others who may have occasion to walk the road-bed to pass over.

To this end our invention consists in a series of parallel bars secured to the cross ties and disposed in the rails, and presenting a series of inclined planes which by their inclination and smoothness prevent cattle from obtaining footing upon the space occupied by the guard.

Apreferred construction of the cattle guard is exhibited in the accompanying drawings in which I Figure l is a general perspective view of a railway road -crossing showing one of the guards in position in relation to the trackway and line fencing of the wagon road. Fig. 2, is a longitudinal cross-section of the guard at the center of the railway. Fig. 3, is a partial cross section of the guard through one of the cross-ties of the railway. Fig. 4 is a longitudinal section of a modified arrangement of due weight of metal, bent and placed as shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3, in lines parallel with the rails, between and beyond the latter. The bars, E, bent to an upper angle and standing with their central webs uppermost and about three inches apart from web to web, rest at their'lower bent ends upon side-cleats, 19, secured to the side of the ties, B, at the bottom, and extend thence over and beyond the next adjacent tie, supported at their angles upon a second cleat, b at the top of said adjacent tie-thus presenting two inclined planes having opposite declivities from the top of the tie,the shorter declivity of one set of bars overlapping the longer opposite declivity of the next, and presenting a break at a height of several inches between the two as shown. The bars being thus placed sufiiciently close to prevent the feet of cattle passing through, the angle of declivity in each case is sufficient, aided by the smooth surface of the metal, to prevent the cattle obtaining a footing upon the general surface of the guard. The foot being generally flat and requiring a comparatively level resting place, is turned sidewise in attempting to rest upon the webs of the bars, and moreover slips down the declivityforward or backward as the case may be,- and thus the animal is warned off by the wrenches of its ankle joints at the outset of its attempts to pass the guard.

The bars are firmly secured in position by screws or nails and are easily removed or repaired if by any accident they become displaced or bent out of shape. The cleats may be extended as far as necessary outward beyond the ties, and the general width of the guard thus increased as desired.

In Fig. 4, we have shown a slight modification in which long and short bars are used as follows:Long bars, E, symmetrically bent at the center are secured at the high angle upon a tie, with their ends secured to cleats, b, at the sides of and near the bottom of the adjacent ties at each side. Upon the adjacent ties are placed the short bars, E also symmetrically bent and similarly placed their ends projecting just beyond the edge of the tie and thus forming a step off at each side down upon the long bars, E.

Beneath the guard, the ballast of the roadbed may occupy a somewhat lower level than that of the road-bed generally,say even with the bottom of the ties instead of the top: and this space may be kept clean-the object being to prevent any obstruction which may interfere with the smoothness of the inclined surfaces. We may also employ the bars, E, (of Fig. 4,) as exhibited in Fig. 5, resting at their high angles upon the ties and abutted end to end upon small supplementary cross ties z, placed between the main ties, and omit the short bars entirely: or, what is equivacure by Letters Patent of the United States, the following:

1. A railway cattle-guard consisting of a series of strips or bars bent in vertical planes, and placed in parallel relations between the track rails, with their upper angles over the ties, and the lower angles between and below the upper faces of the ties, so as to present by their aggregation laterally a longitudinal succession of cross planes, inclined at opposite angles substantially as set forth.

2. A railway cattle-guard consisting of two or more series of strips or bars, bent to angles in vertical planes,each series consisting of a number of strips placed in longitudinal parallelism between the track-rails, with the upper angles over the ties and the lower angles supported between the ties,-each series terminating above the next succeeding series to produce a vertical break, extending cross-wise of the road bed, substantially as set forth.

3. A surface cattle-guard for railways, embod ying a series of T-bars bent to corresponding angles in a vertical plane, and placed in longitudinally parallel relations between the track, with the web uppermost, and with the upper angles over the ties, and the lower angles supported between the ties so as by their lateral aggregation to present a succession of cross planes with successively opposite inclinations, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof we have hereunto set our hands in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

DANIEL H. MAHONEY.

HENRY D. HANOVER.

Witnesses:

L. M. HOSEA, L. O. HOSEA. 

